As far as I’m concerned, Orchestra’s excellent email application Mailbox – now owned and maintained by Dropbox– needs only a few little touches to become the ultimate mobile email client. With today’s not-to-be-missed refresh, Mailbox has become the closest thing to email nirvana, at least for me.

Didn’t use Mailbox because it wouldn’t let you customize signatures on a per-account basis? Solved!

The annoying inability to search every message in your Gmail account? That too! And as a bonus, Mailbox can now open links in Google’s Chrome iOS browser…

Cloud search is great – not only does it scans local messages downloaded to your device like before, but you can finally search across all email in your Gmail accounts.

That alone is newsworthy in its own right.

If you have multiple Gmail accounts set up in Mailbox – i.e. work and personal accounts – Mailbox will now allow you to customize a per-account signature to be automatically added to each outgoing message based on your ‘send-from’ address.

Moreover, you can now open links in Google’s Chrome iOS browser if you don’t like Safari (a toggle is available through in-app settings). Needles to say, the team has also added several performance improvements and bug fixes “to make your Mailbox experience even faster and easier”.

Woohoo! Mailbox now has cloud search, account-specific signatures and support for Chrome! http://t.co/Kw9mj8PuFR

Oh, and because Dropbox now owns Mailbox, you can get an additional gigabyte of free cloud storage when you link your Dropbox account to Mailbox.

It’s easy, just go to Mailbox settings and hit Dropbox to link your accounts. The additional 1GB of Dropbox storage will be automatically deposited into your account. If not for some reason, unlink your Dropbox account from Mailbox and re-link it.

Advisory: this 1GB is only for the first year, as all other Dropbox promotions usually are.

MORE FROM iDB

I used this app since it was launched and I have to say it is overrated and hinders my experience with my mac mail app as well as my gmail on my browser.

Rhys_H

in part I agree, love the ios client but trying to integrate with Mac Mail is an absolute headache. Surely there must be someone out there with some tips on how to get around this?

✪ aidan harris ✪

“Of course, there are still a few missing features that need to be implemented ASAP, starting with support for email accounts other than Gmail – namely iCloud and POP.”

All the changes and improvements the Mailbox development team have made to their service I’m genuinely surprised this isn’t a high priority. The fact that if I’m using mailbox I’m forced to use my gmail account (which is my spam email account used for signing up to websites I don’t want to be bothered by) makes it impossible for me to recommend Mailbox to others.

No, I understand what you meant- it would be better to use your existing labels as is. But for my personal use it ended up being okay- I just renamed my most-used labels to add the [Mailbox] prefix. I was just happy there was a way to hack your own labels into the app, without that it would be unusable for me too.

huh. I never even thought of that. You just blew my freaking mind. Thanks!

madmaxmedia

Cool- that’s why I posted the tip!

Kenny Woodard

Needs to support at least Yahoo! Mail or it won’t be too useful. Plus the mail app on iOS 7 is still pretty nice.

Diego Gastón Milano

Yup, I never tried this app -not even once! Why? Because I use Exchange and I need a client with support for it.
I agree this may be the best looking app however I emphasize the fact I refuse to clutter my phone with different mail clients just because of Mailbox’s inability to support all my different mail servers (including Outlook, and Exchange).
Again, I pass. 🙁

Seriously? So many “great” features and still no support for other e-mail services?
It’s not possible that it isn’t a priority in this project.

Diego Gastón Milano

Agreed, although bringing support to more mail server accounts is not as easy as fixing something as simple as proving support for multiple signatures, and more gimmicks this app has.
Perhaps this proves most people use Gmail? I dunno.
I’m still waiting for Exchange support; until then, this is a no-go for me.

Damian W

for those crying about other email services….just look around and you will find two great alternatives: Boxer and Evomail. Enough said, and please just use the other two apps instead of lamenting about Mailbox.

madmaxmedia

Evomail is very nice, and has great support for many other email services, including regular IMAP accounts.

PiraCee

I hadn’t heard of Evomail. Cheers for the heads up.
Multiple email accounts and push notifications!! F**k you Mailbox!!

An iOS only app that requires a Google service. Pft.

madmaxmedia

Who says the free space is only for a year? Their bonus space offers have never been promoted as having a time limit, neither is this one.

Nikki B.

I don’t like the fact that it displays ALL of the emails. I like the fact that you could select the number of emails (ie. 50, 100 etc) in the older version. This version does not give you that option. That need to be fixed ASAP.